Workspace basics

Learn about the Premiere Elements Workspace to edit crisp and awesome videos quickly.

The Adobe Premiere Elements workspace presents an easy-to-use interface for video enthusiasts. It organizes features into Quick, Guided, and Advanced views based on complexity. 

When you launch Adobe Premiere Elements, the first screen that you receive is the Home screen. On this screen, you can open your desired application, view several feature tutorials, access resources for latest features, view Auto Creations, and more. For more information about the Home screen, see Get to know the Elements Home screen. 

Views

The Adobe Premiere Elements workspace has three views, each offering different levels of editing capabilities. Start with Quick and Guided. When you have gained some experience, explore the powerful tools in the Advanced view.

Quick View

Quick view aggregates basic features enthusiasts commonly use to quickly edit and share video footage with others. It optimizes common tasks you perform with clips, such as editing and sharing movies.

Use the Quick View options to add titles, effects, transitions, and background music to your clips. Pan or zoom your clip, or use Smart Trim for a crisper video if necessary. 

Quick view sceneline

The Quick view sceneline in Premiere Elements 2025 has a proper sceneline with a "V1" track and an audio-video track. The V2 track is only for videos, and the A1 track is only for audio. You can also remove or add tracks using the mouse menu. You can trim unwanted portions within individual video clips through the smart trim workspace, which you can launch by clicking the Edit video clip icon on a video. You can swap the position of a video clip with another to make a coherent movie sequence.

Additionally, you can add transition effects at the beginning or end of your media or between two media. You can also add music to your movie using the Audio tracks to add music or record narration. For more information, see Arranging clips in the Quick view timeline.

Guided Edit View

The Guided view helps you to learn how to edit movies sequentially through a series of steps. From trimming unwanted footage to animating graphics in your video clips, guided edits help you enhance your video clips. 

Advanced View

The Advanced view includes advanced features and tools, such as Audio Mixer, that professionals use to perform intricate video editing tasks.

In addition to the panels available in the Quick view, the Advanced view contains the Project Assets panel.

This panel contains the media files you import into your Premiere Elements project. Use the panel options to organize the files as a list or in a grid. The grid view displays a thumbnail for each file. If you add any media asset to the timeline, a blue icon appears below the thumbnail for the asset.

Advanced View timeline

For more advanced editing, use the Advanced View timeline. The Advanced view timeline graphically represents your movie project as video and audio clips arranged vertically stacked tracks. When you capture video from a digital video device, the clips appear sequentially as they occur.

The Advanced View timeline uses a time ruler to display the components of your movie and their relationship to each other over time. You can trim and add scenes, indicate important frames with markers, add transitions, and control how clips are blended or superimposed. The right-click options for the timeline are organized into easily accessible categories. Compared to the Quick view, the Advanced view timeline has more tracks.

For more information on using the Advanced View timeline, see Arranging Clips in the Advanced View timeline.

Quick Tools panel in Advanced view

You can choose a quick tool in the Advanced view Timeline panel by clicking it or using its keyboard shortcut. Hover the cursor over a tool to view its name and shortcut.

The Selection Tool is the standard choice for selecting clips, menu items, and other objects in the user interface. Switching to the Selection Tool is generally a good practice when you’ve finished using different, more specialized tools.

Select a clip, and all clips to the right in their own track. To select a clip and all clips to the right in all tracks, Shift-click the clip. Pressing Shift changes the Track Selection Tool into the Multi-track Selection Tool. 

Select a clip; all clips to the left are in their track. To select a clip and all clips to the left in all tracks, Shift-click the clip. Pressing Shift changes the Track Selection Tool into the Multi-track Selection Tool. 

Use this tool to adjust a clip's In or Out point within a Timeline. The Ripple Edit Tool automatically closes gaps created by the edit and maintains all other edits to the left or right of the trimmed clip.

The Rate Stretch Tool in Premiere Elements allows you to adjust a clip's playback speed, either by speeding it up to shorten its duration or slowing it down to lengthen it. Importantly, this tool maintains the clip's original In and Out points.

Use this tool to create one or more incisions in clips within a Timeline. Please select a specific point in a clip to split it at that precise location. To split clips in all tracks at that location, hold down the Shift key and select on the spot in any of the clips.

Use this tool to add horizontal text to the clip in the Program monitor.

Using this tool in Premiere Elements significantly reduces the time spent on cutting, adjusting, applying fades, and previewing, all in the effort to synchronize a piece of music with the duration of a scene.

Use this tool to draw a rectangle in the clip on the Program monitor. Also, add Polygon and Ellipsis Tool. 

Add 

Use the Add Media panel to add media files. You can add media files from Elements Organizer, Files and folders, Media Browser, Photos from cameras and devices, and Videos from cameras and devices. For more information, see Add Media.

The Project Assets   panel (Available in Guided and Advanced view) lets you preview source material for your projects. Select the Guided or Advanced view to access it, then select Project Assets.

The Title button   contains pre-formatted Title templates you can use in your movie. If you would like more information, you can see Creating titles.

Lets you add theme music to your movie. For more information, see Adding music scores to video clips.

(Available in Guided and Advanced view) You can spruce up your videos with graphic elements, such as clip art that you can add to portions in your video clips.

Export & Share

The Export & Share panel contains everything you need to save and share your finished project. You can save your project for viewing on the web, mobile phone, computer, DVD (applicable for 2022 and earlier versions), and Blu-ray disc, among other platforms. The Export & Share option includes all the available export formats in a single panel. Individual tabs on the Export & Share panel represent the various media options you can choose from.

For more information, see Export & Share.

Use the Export & Share panel to share (export) your finished project.

Toolbar

All the editing controls and tools in Premiere Elements are grouped in the right panel and categorized in three categories based on their functionality:

Fix

The Adjust panel lets you adjust the inherent properties of your clip, such as color and lighting. If you add a title to your clip, use the Adjust panel to alter its properties if necessary.

Provides options that let you add cool effects to your video. For example, use Time Remapping to add sophisticated motion effects to your video. You can choose Smart Trim to let Premiere Elements automatically edit your footage for a crisper video. For more information, see Tools.

Edit

Lets you view the properties of effects already applied to your clip. The panel provides various options that enable you to modify the applied effects.

Shows special effects and presets you can apply to clips in your movie. To edit a special effect after applying it, click Effect Controls to modify the properties in the Effect Controls panel. Compared to the Quick view, the Expert view provides more effects organized under various categories. For more information, see Effects.

Provides transitions you can use between your movie clips. The Transition contextual control appears automatically when you apply a transition for the first time. Use it to modify the transition properties. To open the Transition contextual control later, double-click the transition. The Expert view provides more transition effects compared to the Quick view. For more information, see Transitions.

Action bar

The Action bar contains the following options:

Reverses the action performed.

Repeats the action performed.

Opens Elements Organizer to let you organize and manage your media files.

Opens the Premiere Elements home screen. For more information, see Get to know the Elements Home screen. 

Events panel

The Events panel lists warnings, error messages, and other information you can use to identify and troubleshoot problems, particularly those associated with plug-ins and other components from third-party developers.

An alert icon , , on the status bar notifies you of an error. Double-clicking the icon opens the Events panel, and clearing the associated item from the Events panel removes the icon from the status bar.

Event notification

In addition to the alert icon in the Events panel, a notification pop-up window appears in the lower right corner of the user interface.

The notification appears for a few seconds, and the background color of the notification indicates the type of event. For example, error notifications have a Red background, warning notifications have a Yellow background, and informational notifications have a Blue background.

The notification pop-up window appears by default. If you want to turn it off, deselect Show Event Indicator under the General category in the Preferences dialog.

Event notification

In addition to the alert icon in the Events panel, a notification pop-up window appears in the lower right corner of the user interface.

The notification appears for a few seconds, and the background color indicates the event type. For example, error notifications have a Red background, warning notifications have a Yellow background, and informational notifications have a Blue background.

Info panel

Info panel shows the file information of a selected clip. To open it, select Window > Info and select any clip on the timeline or project assets.

The Info panel displays data about a selected item and timecode information for clips under the current-time indicator in the Timeline.

Information for the current selection is displayed at the top of the panel. This information varies depending on its media type, the active panel, etc.

Video: Indicates frame rate, frame size, and pixel aspect ratio in that order.

Audio: Indicates sample rate, bit depth, and channels in that order.

Tape: Indicates the name of the tape.

In: Indicates the Inpoint timecode of the selected clip.

Out: Indicates the Outpoint timecode of the selected clip.

Duration: Indicates the duration of the selected clip.